North Korea appears to be warming to returning to the six-nation nuclear talks – so say U.S. academics and former officials.

Ri Gun, Pyongyang’s second-ranking nuclear negotiator, and Sung Kim, U.S. special envoy to disarmament talks met in New York on Friday, October 30th.

[Winston Lord, Former U.S. Ambassador to China]:
"I think the general impression was they were willing to engage, the mood was much better than we've seen in recent months, both officially and unofficially, but without getting into detailed positions, one would not expect to hear significant specific initiatives or positions.”

[Evans Revere, Korea Society President]:
"All of us have seen, heard and read comments coming from the DPRK side in various ways that suggest that there has been an uptick in interest in resuming bilateral and multilateral dialogue. I think it would be a fair general characterization of the discussions that took place today to say that we heard those themes, that interest expressed fairly clearly during the course of our meetings."

Ri was tight-lipped after the meeting and did not take part in the news conference.

But the rare contacts during Ri's visit were seen as a possible step toward a formal U.S.-North Korea meeting that could lead to a resumption of long-stalled six-country nuclear talks.

The United States is willing to meet North Korea in a bilateral setting, if such contacts lead to a resumption of six-party talks that also include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

Those talks have been stalled since North Korea quit them six months ago.

Pyongyang conducted its second nuclear test in May of this year.

Donald Zagoria of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, said it was clear that neither the Obama administration nor any future administration will be able to normalize or improve relations with a nuclear North Korea.

Japan's Yomiuri newspaper reported on Thursday that Kim and Ri reached a basic agreement last  weekend in New York to have U.S. special envoy Stephen Bosworth visit Pyongyang around the end of November to begin bilateral talks.

Revere said a possible Bosworth visit was discussed on Friday, but only in the context of North Korea resuming a multilateral approach.